


Dr Piranoid and Ms Shark

by Sharky857



Category: Street Sharks (Cartoon)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, OCs Included, minor warning for some strong language here and there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-02-16 04:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18684454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharky857/pseuds/Sharky857
Summary: Noting how every mutant is only male, this time Doctor Paradigm has his mind set on trying to genetically alter some female subjects instead.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fan fic contains OCs, one of which is pretty much the main character. So, you know the drill: don't like OCs-centered stories, just don't read. Also, I tried to proof-read it a few times, but knowing my luck, some typos will be definitely there. :°)
> 
> The story is actually a total overhaul of an oldass fic I wrote years ago on DeviantArt, when I was young and my English was still a total disaster.  
> If you'd like to read this one and do a quick comparison to the older version, here's the link. I'm just not holding myself responsible for any eyes bleeding: https://sta.sh/0qmv3n1zh5y
> 
> A couple fun facts about Emily and Jamie:  
> \- Emily:  
> I've always had a mild headcanon that Doctor Luther "Piranoid" Paradigm were of German origins, because of his first name. At some point after graduating, his family left the US for some time and moved to Europe. Some years later he would've met and married Linda Cortez, of Spanish origins, and the couple would move back to the US.  
> However, their marriage wasn't bound to last, for Linda suddenly fell very ill and, around the time Emily was in fifth grade, eventually met her untimely end.
> 
> \- Jamie:  
> James "Jamie" Murphy is a mixed race young folk: their mother, Mako Turner, is of Japanese origins, while their father, Orson Murphy, is Afro-American. Jamie also identifies as a nonbinary.  
> They befriended Emily some time during sixth grade, and the two grew up to be best friends.  
> In the following fic they haven't been gene-slammed yet, but even they will get their (un)lucky chance.
> 
> P.S.: Libre Office says that this fic is 22 pages and a half long, and I trust its judgement. :°)

The madman made a quick recap of his own plan:s so far, his gene-slamming serum had struck only a few male characters.

  
First it had been those pesky Boltons; the four brothers had successfully been mutated into likewise different sharks. As for their father... Well... Paradigm found safe to assume that even his gene-slamming had been a success. Somehow.  
Then it had been that simpleton Melvin, albeit in a more incidental way, who was now touring the world as a rock star under the alias of Rox.  
Jet had come shortly after, taking up the name Moby Lick once he'd been turned into a half killer whale. His gene-slamming had also come with one of Paradigm’s several plans of getting rid of those Street Sharks. Eventually that plan had failed, Paradigm had lost the control over the mutated boy, and the killer whale had ultimately sided right with the Street Sharks themselves.  
The last one, so far, had been that loser of a former hotel owner with no family at all; a pathetic, middle aged man who had been ready for anything to get his own revenge on the Street Sharks, for -from his own point of view- it was solely their fault if his only hotel had been destroyed. Now that man was another loyal servant of Paradigm, known as Repteel.

  
Even his own Seaviates had turned out to be all males, Paradigm reasoned: Slobster, Slash, Killamari... The only he wasn't entirely sure of its gender was Tentakill, a bio-project the geneticist had been working on for a while. And as a project created from scratch, that creature had been genetically engineered from scratch as well. Most probably this one was neutral, the man had concluded.

  
Doctor Paradigm had tried one more time to create a new Seaviate. However, this one seemingly turned out as a complete failure: it was basically nothing but an overgrown shrimp, even lacking the fighting abilities and strength of the other Seaviates, not to mention that he was pretty easy to spook as well.  
When he had first emerged from his tank, that shrimp had been scared off his shell by his own reflection, for Pete's sake!  
At first, the man grimaced at this new creature. He should've probably disposed of him right away.

  
Then a thought made him refrain from that.

  
That cowardly Seaviate turned out as the nth _male_ creature.  
Did that mean that there was no way to gene-slam nor recreate _female_ creatures instead?

  
Was it because females and males in every species, humankind included, had slightly different chromosomes, despite sharing the same genome?

  
That thought set Paradigm's mood even lower for a moment. If he couldn't gene-slam nor create female mutants, his hard work would've been in utter vain!  
Simply put, that meant that only the current generation of the male population would've been gifted with superior genes, but the next one would've been gradually clean from those once again, unless they would've been actively and perpetually gene-slammed as well.

  
This also posed another question: would've the mutated males been able to even reproduce _at all_ , after getting gene-slammed? Could they at least have some offspring with regular humans?  
And if so, could their offspring even be able to have kids on their own as well? Or the different sets of DNA would've rendered them some kind of sterile hybrids, therefore preventing further gene spreading?

  
The man shook his head while snorting lightly. _That_ was a matter for another time. Right now he had to think about the immediate future, which brought him back to the early pondering.

By now he knew that he could successfully gene-slam males of any age and ethnicity. Would he be able to do so also on the female population, or would've that slight difference in chromosomes prevented it, somehow?  
There was only one way to know it for sure: he needed a female test subject. And he knew at least two females who may have been the right candidates.  
After another quick pondering, Doctor Paradigm scratched out Lena, for there was a high chance that the plan he had in mind might've failed from the start.

  
Emily, on the other hand...

  
The man smirked deviously as he cast a glance at the newly created Seaviate, who slightly cowered in fear.

  
"P-Please, don't hurt me!" The shrimp whimpered, already bringing his arms up in a defensive pose.

  
"I would never, my dear Shrimp Louie." Doctor Paradigm answered with that mellifluous tone. "Or better: I _might_ consider not destroying you, if you could prove useful to me."

  
"Y-Yes, boss! Sure thing! A-Anything you want!!" The other nodded frantically.

 


	2. Chapter 2

  
Emily had been taking a walk back to Jamie's place from the Street Sharks hideout.

  
Jab had gently insisted to drive her to the house of the Murphys, but she had likewise gently declined. The sunset sky was clear, and it just seemed like a perfect evening for a simple walk. Besides, their place was relatively close as well: a small yet comfortable house in the neighbouring suburban area.

  
As per usual, the young woman had given a couple days forewarning to the family, she and her friend Jamie had already planned her stay for that couple of days, and the young folk had helped their parents prepare their single guest room.  
'Emmie' had been crystal clear: she would've been at their place at 8 o'clock, with an extra warning if she'd ever been just one minute late. That's how precise the girl had always been.

  
Emily took a quick look at the display of her own cellphone: she had left the HQ a bit later than intended, but it was no big deal. She knew a few shortcuts that would've been really useful to catch up on the few minutes lost so far. She would've still made it in time, no biggie.

  
Or so she thought.

  
The girl turned a corner at her usual brisk pace, walking into an empty alley flanked left and right by a series of abandoned warehouses, one next to each other and separated only by some smaller, short passages.  
Roughly halfway, a shadow suddenly ran into her from a tight passage to her left, bumping into the girl and making the two of them suddenly lose the balance. With a simultaneous groan -Emily- and yelp -the other figure-, the two found themselves to the ground.

  
"Ow! Hey, what's the big idea!?" Emily gasped, rubbing her mildly aching posterior.

  
"WUAHHHHHH! I-I'm s-so sorry! P-Please don't hurt m-me!!" The shadow immediately shrieked with a piercing and panicking voice, as it sprang back on its feet.

  
Emily rose her gaze to the other. The light of the sunset oddly seemed to make the other's clothes shine in a bright red colour. As if they were more like some kind of armour plates <i>-a shell-</i> than actual clothes.

Oh, wait a second...

  
The girl paid a closer attention to the figure.  
It wasn't a person. Well, at least not a normal person. Regular humans didn't have antennas. And they definitely had not _six limbs_.

The girl gasped loudly as she sprang on her feet.

_That was a mutated shrimp!_

  
"I-I'm sorry! R-Really, truly SORRY!" The mutated shrimp whimpered again.

  
"Hey, hey! Don't sweat it-- uh... Buddy...?" The girl answered right away. "It was just an accident, really. No need to be this nervous." She tried to reassure the other.

  
"Oh... Thank you! T-Thank you! If only everyone else was as kind as you!" The shrimp looked extremely relieved.

  
"What do you mean?" Emily asked, then shook her head. "Never mind that. What happened to you?"

  
"Heh, could you believe it? Some maniac scientist did this to me!" The shrimp answered in a huff. "But apparently I didn't turn out as he wanted: too weak, too coward... He..." The mutant trailed off for a moment, panic slowly rising once again as he ended his sentence. " _He wants to destroy me!_ "

  
"What!?" Emily exclaimed out loud.

  
"He wants to kill me because of a mistake he has made! He even set his disgusting minions on my tail, but I managed to shake them off. For now. I-I don't want to be destroyed! P-Please, I-- Just help me find a place where to hide!" The shrimp begged.

  
Emily looked around for a moment, unsure what to do at first. Well, those warehouses looked massive from the outside. If the shrimp ever hid into one, he could easily sneak here and there between a building and another without being seen from the alley.  
The girl looked back at the mutant.  
  
  
"Alright, but first I should warn the others."

  
"NO!" The other gasped. "P-Please, there may be no time! W-What if those... _those monsters_ will find me before your friends!?"

  
Emily glanced at the other for a split moment.  
Well, that guy had a point: she only knew that this shrimp had some Seaviates on his tail, but she had no way to tell how far those fuckers could've been.

  
"Alright." The young woman eventually nodded. "But once we find a shelter for you, I will be alerting the Street Sharks right away. They definitely know how to take care of that man and whoever he may send after you."

  
The shrimp looked relieved once again as the duo started to carefully walk the last half of the alley, creeping along the walls so reduce the chances of being accidentally spotted.

  
Emily didn't need to know further details about that shrimp: there was only one 'maniac scientist' in the whole Fission City who could've done that kind of gene-slamming on the poor guy who was now silently following her like a second shadow.  
And knowing that her father was intended to dispose of him simply because he hadn't mutated as he'd hoped was not even a shock to the girl herself. More than once in the past Doctor Paradigm had proved to be a true control freak, and he wouldn't have thought twice to get rid immediately of anything and anyone that wouldn't have followed his orders blindly.

  
Little the young woman knew that Shrimp Louie was actually in no deadly danger at all. He had been instructed by Paradigm himself to act like the nth, innocent victim of a gene-slamming experiment, so to lure the girl into a trap.  
The man had guessed right: that overgrown shrimp may have been a coward, with no extra abilities nor a superhuman strength. But he could compensate the lack of those qualities with some fine deceitfulness.

  
"How about in here?" Emily asked, stopping in front of an entrance. The shrimp looked left and right into the alley, then shook his head.

  
"P-Please, n-no... It's just... still too close to the main road for comfort." Then began to shiver once again. "S-Sorry, I... I must look overly paranoid to you. A-And probably..." He lowered his gaze with a guilty expression, "a bother too." The mutant ended in a saddened whisper.

  
"You're no bother and, given the situation, definitely not overly paranoid either." The girl answered reassuringly. "Listen: let's make a quick, simple deal."

  
The shrimp barely lifted his guilty gaze to look at Emily.

  
"How about you look for a place to hide, and I come along to watch your back in the meantime?" She proposed. "Mind you: if I see even just _one_ slimy Seaviate anywhere, I'm calling Jab and the others on the spot."

  
"Oh..." The other straightened his back, looking once again relieved as he grinned back at the young woman. "That sounds like a brilliant idea, my friend! Yes, let's do it this way!"

  
So the shrimp took the lead; since they were pretty close to the end of that alley, the duo had no choice but walk back where they'd come from.

  
"Here, this looks like a perfect place." The mutant said. He was looking at what was once a service entrance to Warehouse #13, located in one of the tight passages leading into the alley. The small door was so rusted that the original, green paint was barely visible only in a very few spots here and there.  
  
  
He hesitated. "Would you... Would you mind to come inside with me for a moment? Just to make sure that the coast is really clear."

  
Emily shrugged and nodded; everything had been quiet until that moment, and there hadn't been any sign of a single Seaviate. Still, she could understand him: always better be safe than sorry.  
The other grinned, looking relieved again -Emily had lost the count of how many times that mutant had been on that emotional roller-coaster of his-, then he carefully stepped inside the warehouse with the young woman following suit likewise carefully.

  
"Well, looks like the place is safe." The girl said, after the two had been inside and the only noise was their muffled steps.

  
The mutant shrimp didn't answer. Without a warning, he darted forwards, disappearing in the shadow cast by what seemed a big, abandoned vehicle covered by a huge cloth.  
  
  
"Hey, wait!" Emily tried to go after him, when she first heard something ploughing through the air, followed suit by a mild sting to her neck.  
With a small gasp, the girl immediately grabbed and yanked whatever that thing was, looking at it for a moment.

  
A narcotic dart.

  
"Oh shit..." The girl murmured, before feeling suddenly dizzy.

  
Slowly falling on all fours, Emily tried to fight back the effect of the narcotic, but to no avail. As she collapsed onto the dusty floor, the young woman heard a taunting voice, while something green and yellow slithered into her blurred view.

  
"Nighty night. Don't let the bed _sharks_ bite."

  
Repteel.

  
_Son of a b--_

  
At 7:55 in the evening, the world for the young woman went black.

 


	3. Chapter 3

  
At 8:03 the cellphone of some gene-slammed great white shark rung in his pocket.

  
Ripster had been _trying_ to concentrate on his next move at the pool table, but a couple younger brothers, bickering over the last Humongo Burger, had been kind of irritatingly distracting. Fortunately, said bickering was close to an end on its own.

  
"C'mon, that's mine!" Streex complained.

  
"Oh? I don't see your name over it, fish face." Jab sneered, moving the burger out of the tiger shark's reach.

  
"Maybe you didn't take a good look." His brother sneered back. "It's right... <i>there</i>!"

  
That said, Streex jumped as higher as he could and yanked the oh-so-precious! burger from the hands of a baffled hammerhead, swallowing it whole a moment later.

  
"See? Told ya." Street taunted.

  
"Why you little--"

  
"Cool it, you two!" Ripster brought them back to order, taking the phone from his pocket. The great white recognised Jamie's number right away.

  
"Speak to me, little buddy."

  
_< <Ripster? Sorry to bother you, but Emily's not here and she didn't call nor text me yet. I've already tried to call her a couple times but she never picked up.>>_ The worried voice of the young folk came from the phone. _< <Maybe I'm just worrying for nothing, but... You guys know Emmie as much as I do.>>_

  
"She absolutely hates being late, even by a single minute. Yep, that's just Emily." Ripster nodded, speaking in a gentle tone.  Then he turned serious again. "Your concern is more than justified, Jamie. It's definitely not in her style to be even just slightly late without leaving a single message."

  
Jab had been listening to the conversation, staring intensely at his big brother.

  
Emily? _Troubles?_

  
Whoever it was and whatever they even thought to do to her, they would've better been some very, very fast goon.

  
_< <Yep, that's exactly what I thought too.>>_ Jamie answered. _< <I was about to go out and look for her myself, but...>>_

  
"Let us handle this, Jamie." Ripster hummed gently. "Me and my brothers will go look for her. Don't worry, everything will be fine. I'll call you back as soon as I'll have some news. Bye."

  
"What's going on?" Slammu asked as soon as his big brother hung up.

  
Ripster did a quick recap: Emily was late, she hadn't called nor texted yet and, on top of that, she wasn't answering her phone.

  
"Alright, all this sounds like a _huge_ red alert. Any idea how to find her?" Streex asked.

  
"We could start by tracking down the signal from her cellphone." The great white answered, moving to the computer station.

  
Once sat and with the help of their friend Bends, Ripster immediately began to work his magic: first the great white subtly hacked his way into the phone company servers, then his friend took over from there.  
A couple minutes later, the Street Sharks could locate the last location where Emily was supposed to be found.

  
"Hey, I know that place! It's not far from here." Streex remarked, the moment he saw the pulsing dot on the monitor. "It's one of my favourite spots for some sick tricks."

  
"Alright then, lead the way bro!" Ripster nodded, standing up from his seat. "To your vehicles, sharksters!"

 

* * *

  
It took a few minutes for the four brothers to reach the area.  
Bends had been following them from the air and had done a quick recon, using a portable scanner to try and pinpoint the signal they had caught earlier from the cellphone.

  
"Well... Long alley, lots of building lined on both sides, all abandoned and showing no sign of life anywhere." The young man quickly summed up, after he had descended to the ground for a moment with his own vehicle. "Sorry, guys. I'm getting no signal from Emily's phone."

  
"But she was definitely here, at least until not long ago." Streex remarked, quickly sniffing the air. "I can still smell her scent."

  
"Yeah, and I can also smell a fuckin' Seaviate." Jab growled lowly.

  
The hammerhead's nose hadn't betrayed him; along with Emily's scent, he had caught a familiar yet unknown whiff. It was clearly the scent of one of Paradigm's minions, albeit it smelled differently from that of any bottom feeder they had already faced.

  
"Let's split up and search the buildings, guys." Ripster suggested. "We may have not much time to find Emily. Bends, keep patrolling from up there. We'll be keeping in radio contact. The first to find any clue will call the others immediately."

  
"You got it, dude." The young man gave a thumb up to the great white; with a quick "good luck, sharksters", he gained altitude and began to fly over the alley back and forth. On the ground, the four brothers had gotten down their vehicles, preferring to proceed on foot.

  
Ripster gave each of them a precise area to cover: he himself would've looked in the North-West portion, Slammu the North-East, while Jab was in charge of the South-East area and Streex of the South-West part.  
Everyone kept their own radio channel open, so that the others could hear everything that would've happened on their respective ends, and possibly reach one another in time as well.

 

* * *

  
It was Slammu who called for the others, eventually.

  
The whale shark had been carefully creeping into the nth passage, and his nose immediately caught the same, combined whiff of Emily and that Seaviate's scent from nearby, only stronger.  
The gene-slammed teenager was just outside an extremely rusted door, which original colour was almost completely missing except for a few, small spots here and there.

  
"Guys, come here, quick! I think I found the right place." Slammu whispered over the radio. “I’m right next to warehouse  #13.”

  
Shortly after, his brothers and Bends reached him. Ripster asked the young man to stay back and keep patrolling the area, so to warn them immediately, if there would've been any 'unwanted guest' coming over.  
Bends moved back to his flying vehicle, resuming his slow, round flight in the air, while the four brothers carefully entered the warehouse.

  
"UGH! They were here alright." Streex immediately grimaced, the scent of the Seaviate was definitely stronger in there.

  
"Let's keep looking." Ripster merely said, albeit they needed not to look any further.

  
In the dim light coming from the dusty windows, Jab caught a faint glint somewhere on the floor and immediately marched towards the source, his brothers following him suit.  
The hammerhead bent down and picked Emily's phone up. The device was undamaged but also turned off, probably its battery had died at some point, which explained why Bends couldn't get its signal anymore.

  
"Fount the phone..." The hammerhead stated deadpan, showing the cellphone to his brothers.

  
"And here's something more." His big brother added, picking something else up from the floor, giving a quick, careful sniff to it.  
"A narcotic dart." The great white stated matter-of-factly. "Someone sent Emily to Dreamland before carrying her away." There was also a big cloth laying on the floor, but the quartet ignored it, for now.

  
"I swear, if I'll ever get my hands on whoever got her..." Jab growled menacingly.

  
"So, how are we going to find Emily now?" A concerned Slammu asked, cutting his brother off.

  
"Guys, look!" Streex recalled the attention of his three brothers. The tiger shark pointing a portable flashlight towards the ground. "This is a fresh trail." He pointed at some tire tracks left on the dusty floor, heading towards the main entrance of the warehouse.

  
The four brothers carefully peeped outside the building, to have a first grasp of where those tracks seemed headed to.

  
"It seems they were headed North." Ripster remarked pensively, then asked for confirmation to Bends. The young man had the advantage of his aerial view and, by using some scanners on his vehicle, eventually he confirmed what the great white had just told: there was a fresh and very clear trail heading to the Northern part of the city, in the opposite direction to where the small group was now.

  
"Alright! What are we waiting for? Let's haul fins already!" Jab exclaimed impatiently.

  
"Hmmm..." Ripster mumbled thoughtfully. Sure, they had some fresh tracks to follow, but they seemed way too evident.

  
Probably it had been a simple mistake from the Seaviates part, they were known for not being exactly the sharpest tools in the shed, after all.

  
Or was it...?

  
"Let me try something, first." The great white merely said, before closing his eyes and resting his palms on some specific spots next to the corner of his own mouth, focusing for a moment.

  
"Aw, c'mon! This is no time for a fuckin' nap!" Jab snorted.

  
"I'm taking no naps, hothead." The great white muttered with his eyes still closed. "Now, keep quiet, all of you! My shark sonar is already kinda tricky to use as it is."

 


	4. Chapter 4

  
"... Ugh..."  
Emily was slowing coming to. She felt groggy and her head was pounding with some nice migraine. The girl tried to open her eyes, but the light felt too bright and she shut them close right away with a light wince.

  
After a moment, she opened her eyes more slowly, getting gradually adjusted to that light.  
When she could finally keep her eyes open without any side-effect, she looked around. Despite she still felt dizzy, it didn't take her too long to realise where she was: it looked like an underground makeshift lab.  
The young woman also spotted a couple of familiar Seaviates standing in a corner, talking with a likewise familiar man in a metal exo-suit.

  
"See? I told you I could be useful too, boss!"

  
"Yes, yes. You did a good job, Shrimp Louie."

  
That shrimp...

  
Emily grunted under her breath. _"I should've known."_  
Tricked by a fuckin' shrimp... The girl beat herself up over her own naivety.  
" _Emily Paradigm, you are a fuckin' idiot."_

  
The young woman tried to stand up. It was in that moment that she realised she had been restrained to what seemed to be some kind of operating table.  
Of course. Her father wasn't _that_ stupid, after all.

  
"What the fuck do you want from me?" Emily snarled.

  
"You're awake, at last." Doctor Paradigm turned to her with an eerie smile. "Oh, don't be like that, my dear. I'm about to make you the first female representative of your kind." The scientist added as he calmly approached the table.

  
_First female representative...?_  
Emily immediately realised what that mad man meant to do and gasped.

  
"You wouldn't dare...!" The young woman hissed back.

  
"Oh, I would and I will." He smiled again, taking something from a compartment in his own armour as he stopped right next to the restrained girl. It was a syringe gun, already loaded with a filled vial.

  
Emily instinctively began to try and break free from those restraints, albeit in vain.  
"You won't get away with this, mark my words!" She yelled outraged. "You gene-slam me, I will make your life a never-ending hell! Those Street Sharks will be the least of your problems!"

  
"i would really like to see you try." Her father taunted back. "You see, this serum is bound with a mind-control fluid." He then hummed, showing the gun to his daughter. "But yes. Once I'm done with you, you _will_ make someone's life a 'never-ending hell'. Just, it will not be mine." The man smirked coldly. "I've heard that you and 'Jab' have a very similar strength. It will be quite entertaining to see the two of you pitted against each other. Hammerhead versus Mako. Albeit he might have a slightly harder time; Mako sharks may be quite elusive."

  
Unfazed by those taunts, the girl snarled back. "Jab and the others will find you and make you pay! That's gonna be for sure!"

  
Doctor Paradigm laughed.  
"Ahahah,  that's rich!" The man remarked. "Right now those fools are surely following the false trail I cleverly left in the warehouse over our head. By the time they will realise they have been tricked, it will be too late to do anything!"

  
Emily stared at the syringe gun slowly approaching the bare skin on her neck, before shutting her eyes tightly closed and turning her head away.

  
So, that was it. She was about to be gene-slammed and mind-controlled by that freak of her own father, most probably unable to snap out of that brainwashing process and be condemned to be just another 'servant' of a mad scientist for the rest of her life.  
Talk about a lousy deal.

 

* * *

  
Ripster opened his eyes suddenly.

  
"Hah, gotcha!" The great white grinned, then he turned to his little brother right away, pointing at a specific spot into the floor. "Slammu, hit it with all you got!"

  
"Here comes the big one!" The whale shark said as he rose his fists over his head. As soon as his brothers left him enough room, Slammu brought his fists down, smashing the floor with his bare hands.

  
"What was that!?" Shrimp Louie immediately shrieked the moment he and the others heard a sudden and low rumble coming from above, getting gradually louder and louder as the ceiling began to crack.

  
Not feeling any sting coming just yet, the young woman dared to take a quick peek. And smirked right away.

  
" _That_ is the sound of the several hands and teeth you fuckers are about to catch." Emily sneered.

  
As to confirm her words, four half-sharks dropped from the big hole that suddenly burst open in the ceiling.

  
"Shark attack!"

  
Streex landed right on Repteel, while Slammu nearly flattened Killamari onto the ground with his sweet weight alone.

  
"T-These are t-the Street Sharks!?" Louie was visibly shaking. He had never really seen any of them before, that was his first time ever.

  
"Yes, it's them! Now don't just stand there, you idiot! Attack! That's an order!" Doctor Paradigm barked.

  
The shrimp seemingly snapped out of his panic and ran to fetch his own blaster -it kinda sucked not having poison darts nor electric eels to shoot.

  
Louie only had time to put a hand on the weapon, when a dark blue one, definitely bigger than his own, leaned over his.  
Gulping loudly, he slowly turned to the owner of that other hand. Ripster's snout was only a few inches from his eyes.

  
"Has anyone told you that it's dangerous to play with guns, shorty?" The great white grinned coldly, yanking the blaster away from the weak grip of the other.

  
"U-Uh.... I... I..." The Seaviate stammered nervously.

  
Ripster chewed on the weapon and swallowed it in less than a couple bites, never moving his stare from the other mutant.

  
"... WUAH-AHHHHHHH!" Louie shrieked, now really and fully panicking. He was supposed to fight those freaking' titans!? One alone had just eaten an entire blaster as if it were some kind of tasty snack! What else could he even do to himself?

  
Nuh-uh, this shrimp was not going to stick around to find that out.  
“I’m outta here!!”

  
Louie turned and fled the scene at the speed of light, ignoring Paradigm's orders to "come back here and fight!"

  
"That coward...!" Repteel snarled, before yelping. Streex had just pulled him by his tail, starting to spin him in circle while humming 'I spin you right round, baby, right round...'

  
"Let... me... go...!" The Seaviate protested with each fast spin, feeling dizzier and dizzier.

  
"Aye, aye, sucker!" The tiger shark smirked, suddenly letting him go.

  
Flung away by the centrifugal force, the other crashed right into Doctor Paradigm, who was about to administer the gene-slamming serum to Emily.

  
"Hah, up yours!" The girl laughed as some hammerhead shark rushed to her side, freeing the young woman from those restraints.

  
"Emily! Are you alright?" Jab asked, helping her to sit up first and then get down the table.

  
"I'm fine, babe." She answered, gently squeezing him into a hug for a moment. "I knew you guys would come." The girl gently broke free from the hug to cast him a small smile, when some movement behind Jab's back caught her attention, and she gasped lightly.

  
"Look out, behind you!"

  
Without even looking, the hammerhead immediately ducked along with the young woman, hearing a couple of poison darts flying just above his head with a barely audible hiss.

  
"That's it! You're going down, swamp-breath!" Jab growled, immediately ramming into Killamari, who had just missed his target.

  
As the two tumbled on the floor, Emily stood up and moved to a safe corner, staying as far away as possible from the ongoing clash between half-sharks and Seaviates.

  
The girl couldn't do much but keeping an eye at the scene before her eyes, in order to avoid any flying Seaviate, heavy furniture and even some pieces of machinery.  
Whenever those sharks wreak havoc, they _did_ wreak havoc.

  
She had also noticed that her father had lost the syringe gun, most probably it fell off somewhere on the floor when Repteel crashed into the man.

  
Wait... If that thing had been still intact, so would've been the content. Perhaps they could recover and send it over to professor Bolton, so that the man could have some raw material to work on and create an antidote!  
With that in mind and while being careful to avoid this and that brawling mutant, both sharks and Seaviates, Emily crept close to the operating table and began to inspect the area, standing on all four so that the table itself could offer some cover.  
Much to her own disappointment, it was soon clear that the gun was gone. Emily came to the conclusion that someone must've seized it, for there were no scraps anywhere either, which meant that it hadn't been destroyed.

  
"Unhand me, you uncouth creature!"

  
Emily scooted away and ducked just in time to see Doctor Paradigm literally flying over her head, flung against the nearby wall by some rampaging hammerhead shark. While the girl was looking for the syringe gun, the half-shark had knocked Killamari out for a moment and stormed towards Paradigm right after.

  
"You son of a bitch! You tried to gene-slam Emily, your own daughter!" Jab snarled, shoving a heavy table out of his way. "You should have your head chewed off!" He added, marching closer to the geneticist.

  
The other had barely the time to recover from the temporary dizziness, before a brown hand seized his armour by one of the shoulder plates and lifted him into the air, smashing him against the wall a second time.

  
"Ugh…!" The man grunted. Then, with the corner of the eye, he spotted someone creeping closer to the young woman, who was apparently too busy staring at her beloved boyfriend to notice.  
It was Louie, and he had a gun.

  
The mutant shrimp had indeed fled the scene, but, once reached a quieter place, he had stopped to reconsider his actions. If he'd kept on running away, there was no way that his boss would've wanted to keep him alive. Even if he'd left the lab and started living in hiding, he had the feeling that he would've only delayed the inevitable.  
So Louie had decided to come back, also trying to find another way to prove Doctor Paradigm that he truly was worthy to have around.  
That had been when he had eyed the syringe gun, still in one piece and still with the vial fully loaded. Street Sharks and Seaviates had been still beating the crap out of each other, while the hammerhead-looking shark had seized Paradigm. And that Emily girl was like petrified by the shock of what she had been witnessing.

  
In other words: everyone was totally distracted, one way or another. It was a matter of now or never, if Louie truly wanted to carry on with his little plan. Tightening the grip on the gun, the shrimp silently crept closer and closer to the unaware girl.  
Despite the dangerous situation he was in, Paradigm couldn't hold back a smirk.

  
"Do what you want with me, Street Shark. But in the end, _I_ still win this round, one way or another!" The geneticist laughed coldly.

  
"What nonsense are you even talking about?" Jab growled, tightening his grip.

  
"Jab, ple-- OW!"  
"Gotcha!" Louie grinned deviously as he suddenly pressed the gun against Emily's neck, pulling the trigger.

  
Distracted by the sudden yelp from Emily, Jab turned and gasped in horror when he saw what was happening. "Emily, NO!"

  
With a gasp, the girl quickly turned and slapped the gun away, then kneading the mildly aching area as she glared at the mutant shrimp.

  
"You again..." She snarled. "I'm so gonna make a cocktail out of you!"

  
"WUAHHHHHHHHHHH!" Suddenly terrified by that threat, Louie fled the scene for the second time.

  
Emily didn't even bother to chase after him, right now she had another major matter to worry about.  
The needle stung, which only meant one thing: she had just gotten injected with the serum.

  
_Fuck!_

  
The girl searched frantically for the gun; she had merely slapped it away from Louie's grip, and she spotted it pretty much at her feet.  
Visibly shaking for the shock, the young woman kneeled down and collected it as the hammerhead dropped Paradigm and kneeled by her side.

  
"Emily... Oh shit..." He whispered.

  
"I-It's not the full dose." The girl whispered back, trying to calm her nerves. She was right: judging by the quantity of serum left in the vial, the young woman had just gotten roughly one third or so of the full dose.

  
With their attention temporarily driven back to the pair kneeled down, the other Street Sharks dropped their fights with the Seaviates.  
"Party's over, guys! Let's get out of here, and fast!" Ripster recalled everyone.

  
"You are not going anywhere, Street Sharks!" Killamari said, trying to wriggle his way out of the pile of debris he'd been just buried under when Jab had previously socked him.

  
"Try and stop us, pit breath!" Streex taunted as he skated right past him, opening a hole in the nearby wall. His brothers followed suit, Jab after gently picking the girl up into his arms.

  
The small group quickly evacuated the underground lab just as the whole room began to collapse due to the structural damages it had suffered from the fight. No one stopped to see if even Paradigm and his minions would've made it, right now their concern was with some potentially and partially gene-slammed girl.

 


	5. Chapter 5

  
Once back to their HQ, their worry turned real; Emily hadn't gotten a complete dose, but she began to display the same 'symptoms' of a gene-slamming in progress nonetheless. At some point the girl even lost consciousness, and Jab had to quickly catch her to break her fall.  
Under the shocked gaze of the others, the young woman began to morph, albeit only a few features eventually seemed to truly change.  
Her brown and wavy hair turned black with a bluish tint as it became completely straight. Her skin tone seemed to lose its original, tanned shade as it veered to what looked more like an overall cyanotic colouration, and, by taking a closer look, some small gills had appeared on both the sides of her neck.

  
Shortly after that half-mutation had settled down, Emily regained consciousness as well. Jab hadn't let her go the whole time; he'd just moved to the couch and sat there, always holding her into his arms in that protective manner.

  
"Ow, my head..." The girl mumbled, before wincing slightly. "Ugh, forget my head... Ow, my _everything_."

  
"Don't worry, Ems. The pain will go away soon." Ripster said soothingly.

  
"I hope so." The young woman grumbled. "Alright, could someone hand me a mirror or something, so I can see the level of fuck-up I'm currently in?"

  
"Well... It doesn't look _that_ bad to me." Streex replied tentatively, handing her his own small mirror.

  
"Leave this kind of judgment to myself." Emily grunted, seizing the mirror.

  
The girl inhaled deeply for a moment, then exhaled and finally looked at her own reflection. She even briefly made a few faces, and found out that even her own teeth looked a bit different; they looked more pointy than those of a normal human.

  
"Heh, I look like some kind of Black Lagoon creature." She muttered with a bitter smile, before wincing again. "Ow! For fuck's sake, here it goes that pain again!" She then snorted.

  
"Hmm... We'd better check this out with our dad." Ripster pondered. "This prolonged pain seems unusual. Maybe he can shed some lights about your situation."

  
"Go ahead." Emily simply shrugged.

  
"Uhm, guys? What about Jamie?" Slammu asked, while his big brother moved to the computer and started to write a mail message. "I mean, they wanted to hear from us, as soon as we would've found Emily."

  
Everyone looked at the young woman for a moment; it was only up to her whether she wanted to keep her friend posted or not.

  
"I'll handle this." Eventually she merely stated.

  
"Here, you can take this." Jab offered his own phone. "Yours is safe and sound, but the battery is dead."

  
The other simply nodded. "Thanks."  
Then she got down from the couch, walking to a quiet corner of the hideout.

  
Jamie answered the phone at first ring.  
_< <Jab? Please, tell me Emmie is fine...>>_

  
"I am fine, J." Emily answered, unable to hold back a small smile before hesitating for a split second. "Well... Sorta." She then added tentatively.

  
_< <Sorta fine? What do you mean, hun?>>_ Her puzzled friend asked.

  
"I hope you're sitting down somewhere, because this is gonna be absolutely fuckin' crazy." Emily answered, then took a deep breath. And told everything that happened, from how some overgrown shrimp lured her into a trap to the gene-slamming attempt and related consequences she'd been now facing.

  
Emily heard her friend gasp in shock.  
_< <That's horrible!>>_ Jamie said. _< <I always had a mild feeling that Doctor Paradigm wasn't exactly a role model, but... Doing _that _to_ you _, his own daughter... >>_ The young folk lowered their voice to a whisper, as if they feared that their parents could hear the incoming swear, even though they weren’t in the same room. _< <That's seriously fucked up, sweetie.>>_

  
"Tell me about it." Emily sighed.

  
_< <What are you going to do now?>>_

  
"For starters..." The girl hesitated for a moment, then went on. "I will not be coming over your place for some time."

  
Her friend seemed taken aback for a split second, but then they seemed to get the reason behind such decision.  
_< <Are you expecting some retaliation of sort?>>_

  
"The dose administration has been incomplete." Emily answered matter-of-factly, albeit unable to hold back a shudder for what she added next. "I'm expecting him to get his hands on me once again, to try and complete the gene-slamming."

  
"Just let him try, and I will pry his fuckin' hands off with my own bare ones!" Jab snarled so loudly that even Jamie could hear him from the other end of the line.

  
"This is why I'd rather not come to your place, at least until things won't settle down." Emily went on, blatantly ignoring the hammerhead shark. "The last thing I'd want to do is putting you and your parents in a danger that could be avoided." The young woman sighed lightly. "I'm sorry, J."

  
_< <It's perfectly understandable, Emmie. No need to apologise, it's never even been your fault in the first place.>>_ The other answered reassuringly. _< <Besides, we could still text and phone each other.>>_ If Emily could see Jamie in that moment, she would've seen the big, optimistic grin on their face.

  
"Hmh, you got a point." She smiled lightly once again.

  
_< <One last thing, hun...>>_ Her friend asked tentatively. _< <Should I... also tell my parents about this, or would you rather not?>>_

  
"They’ll surely ask questions about my absence, so tell them too." The girl answered without hesitation. "You all have always been like a second family to me. This may hit them both like a wrecking ball, but it wouldn't be right to leave them in the dark either. Especially considering that most likely they will be bound to see this 'new me' anyway, sooner or later." Then she added gently: "Just make yourself sure that your mom has her cup of jasmine tea to calm her nerves down afterwards."

  
After that phone call, the girl hung up and handed the cellphone back to its original owner, just in time for a notification sound coming from the computer.

  
Ripster had sent the message to his dad's only e-mail contact he himself knew, knowing that the man could've checked it anywhere he was in that moment.  
The great white guessed right.

  
"Guys, dad answered back." He announced to the small group. Everyone immediately gathered around him, eager to know more.

  
"Dear John, I got your message. What happened to Emily is a terrible news, and I wish I could have done something to stop Paradigm." The half-shark began to read.  
"I am afraid that what you described may be a form of chronic pain, induced by the mutation rendered unstable by the incomplete gene-slamming process. The cells in her own body may be on a never-ending state of 'just about to mutate', which could explain her condition. Moreover, I strongly suspect that Emily could..." Ripster trailed off for a moment, a mild concern depicted on his face.

  
The girl snorted lightly for that hesitation and made her way to the computer screen to read the rest of that message on her own.  
"I strongly suspect that Emily could be some kind of shapeshifter, like Paradigm himself." The girl went on with a dry tone. "However, all these are only suppositions. To be sure of it, I would need to analyse a sample of her DNA. Even so, know that the process may require some time, during which you might sort things out on your own."

  
Emily snorted again. "This is just fuckin' great." She grumbled. "Any other bad news?"

  
Lena came running right in that moment.

  
“You just had to ask, hadn’t you?” Street muttered under his breath.

  
"You really gotta see this!" The young woman panted lightly for the run as she turned the TV on. A breaking news had just interrupted the regular schedule, showing a reporter "live from Paradigm's estate, where professor Luther Paradigm is about to make an important announcement".

  
"What is that motherfucker up to, now?" Jab growled lowly as the small group moved to the TV.

  
The camera shot switched to the man, who looked somewhat upset.  
_< <Citizens of Fission City, something truly horrible happened to my person. To what little family I still had.>>_ The man began to say once gotten the go to proceed.  
_< <That monster... Professor Robert Bolton... Not only he gene-slammed his own sons! He...>>_ Paradigm took a moment, as if to get a grip on himself. Then went on: _< <He kidnapped and gene-slammed also my only daughter!>>_

  
"WHAT!?" The four half-sharks shouted simultaneously.

  
_< <I don't know where my beloved Emily could be right now. She had been last seen with those Street Sharks. My only meagre solace in all this is knowing that she is not held captive against her own will, but most probably with mere deceit, most certainly played by the one known as 'Jab'.>>_ Paradigm kept talking to the small crowd of shocked reporters and to the audience following that breaking news.  
_< <He was once known as a young man by the name of Clint Bolton. He and Emily used to be... very close. So much so that they kept seeing each other even after the gene-slamming accident that involved himself and his brothers.>>_  
The man looked straight into the camera, the expression on his face the one of a heartbroken father, purposely meant to make the townsfolk sympathise with that poor geneticist.

  
"That's a big pile of bullshit!" Streex yelled outraged. Emily was standing in the middle of that group, in front of the four brothers along with Bends and Lena; since none felt like sitting on the couch, that was the only way to watch the news without any half-shark accidentally in the way.  
The girl was oddly silent, her gaze so firmly locked on the screen that she was barely even blinking.

  
_< <This is a message to my daughter. Please, Emily heed my plea: don't listen to the lies of those Boltons, and come back to me. I know we had a few disagreements in the past, but I am still your father and it pains me to know that you met such a horrible fate. I can and will help you, I can and will do anything in my power to find a cure for your mutation!>>_ Paradigm nearly begged. _< <Professor Bolton has no interest at all in making you human again. You and his sons are too convenient to his own schemes as you are right now. But my heart cannot stand the pain of knowing that you shared the same fate as me. You and me are both victims here, but I know I can-->>_

  
"FUCK YOU!" Emily suddenly snapped. "I can't fuckin' believe that man!" She then yelled. "He knew what he was doing from the very start! He wanted to gene-slam AND brainwash me, because he later wanted to pit me against you!"

  
Her voice gradually turned slightly raspier than normal, but Emily didn't care. She was royally pissed off and felt her everything like boiling from within. The girl even ignored the more and more dumbfounded looks on the others' faces, just like she didn't pay attention to the slightly increased, general pain in her whole body, inwardly blaming it on her current distress as she kept on ranting.

  
"But things did not go as he initially planned, so he just called a press conference to play the part of the poor unfortunate sod for the umpteenth time!"

  
That said, the young woman(?) let out a feral scream and smashed the TV screen with an enraged fist.

  
It was only later, when she could see her own reflection in the shattered monitor, that she realised that something with herself was definitely different.  
Her own reflection was about some kind of 'Black Lagoon creature' anymore. It was clearly another half-shark, albeit with a head still full of that same black-bluish hair.  
That was the half mako she was supposed to become from the very start, had she taken the whole dose of that gene-slamming serum.

  
"Uhm, bro...? You might want to tell dad that he nailed the 'shapeshifter' part?" An awestruck Slammu muttered, unable to move his stare away from the girl.

  
Emily kept on observing her own reflection with eyes wide open for the surprise. She even carefully poked, squeezed and patted random areas on her own face,  
_-snout-_  
as if to make herself sure that it was actually her own reflection and not an hallucination.

  
But _that_ was no hallucination. _That_ was truly her mutated form.

  
Completely lost in her own thoughts, Emily silently moved away from the shattered TV.  
So, she could really 'shapeshift' too. And apparently, it could also be triggered by some kind of big distress, just like it had been happening to her own father, even though for different reasons.

  
"How... did you do that?" Streex asked, dumbfounded. "How did you even kept your clothes intact!? You've just gone from 5.5 feet to 6.5 and haven't shredded into pieces a damn thing!"

  
"I like baggy and comfy clothes. Also, the stretchier, the better. Besides, I think I managed only a 98% of integrity." The other merely replied, pointing at her own dorsal fin which, in fact, had ripped a hole through her t-shirt and hoodie, before going silent again.

  
Mistaking that sudden silence for brooding, Jab approached the shark girl with a saddened look: "Emily, I... I'm so sor--"

  
"This is fuckin' wicked..." The other muttered, a faint, feral smirk on her lips. "This is _fuckin' wicked cool!_ "

  
"Wait... what?" The hammerhead blinked.

  
Emily turned to her boyfriend. "Don't you see? I am another 'Street Shark', just like you all!" She grinned, before wincing lightly; just like she had morphed into a half mako shark, the girl gradually shifted back to her partially mutated self.  
"I could blend into a crowd far better than you guys, and I could... 'shark out' in a pinch and finally help you kick some asses!" She then harmlessly poked the hammerhead. "You have no excuses anymore to keep me away from your fights, babe."

  
"But... The whole city will think--" Jab tried to object.

  
"I don't give a flying fuck what 'the whole city' might think." She hummed back. "There's a small handful of people who knows that that Piranoid has been spewing a bullshit after another. Those are all people we can blindly trust too: you, me, your brothers, Rox, Moby, Bends, Lena, Jamie and their family... I'm sure that the number will grow, someday. After all, as my mother used to say: _se coge antes al mentiroso que a un cojo_ , you can catch a liar faster than catching a cripple. It was her reminder that no one can hide behind their own lies forever."

  
Emily smirked deviously. "Sooner or later even that son of a bitch will be busted, you'll see."


End file.
